Sharif Digital Repository

Abstract: In this paper, a secure and efficient Blind Source Separation (BSS) based cryptosystem is presented. The use of BSS in audio and image cryptography in wireless networks has attracted more attention. A BSS based cryptosystem consists of three main parts: secret data, secret keys, and mixing matrix. In this paper, we propose a new design to create a proper mixing matrix in BSS based cryptosystem. We offer a mathematical criterion to select mixing matrix elements before encryption. The proposed criterion gives a simple way to attach the secret sources to keys, which makes source separation very hard for the adversary. Versus, we show that using the random mixing matrix can lead to... 

Designing efficient acoustic stack and elements for high-frequency (HF) medical ultrasound (US) transducers involves various interrelated parameters. So far, optimizing spatial resolution and acoustic field intensity simultaneously has been a daunting task in the area of HF medical US imaging. Here, we introduce optimized design for a 50-MHz US probe for skin tissue imaging. We have developed an efficient design and simulation approach using Krimholtz, Leedom and Matthaei (KLM) equivalent circuit model and spatial impulse response method by means of Field II software. These KLM model and Field II software are integrated, and a GA algorithm is used to optimize the design of the US transducer... 

Social robots may soon be able to play an important role in expanding communication with the deaf. Based on the literature, adaptive user interfaces lead to greater user acceptance and increased teaching efficiency compared to non-adaptive ones. In this paper, we build a robotic architecture able to simultaneously adjust a robot’s teaching parameters according to both the user’s past and present performance, adapt the content of the training, and then implement it on the RASA robot to teach sign language based on these parameters in a manner similar to a human teacher. To do this, a word to teach in sign language, repetition, speed, and emotional valence were chosen to be adaptive using a... 

This paper investigates the physical layer security (PLS) design of an untrusted relaying network where the source node coexists with a multi-antenna eavesdropper (Eve). While the communication relies on untrustworthy relay nodes to increase reliability, we aim to protect the confidentiality of information against combined eavesdropping attacks performed by both untrusted relay nodes and Eve. Considering the hardware impairments (HIs), both total power budget constraint for the whole network and the individual power constraint at each node, this paper presents a novel approach to jointly optimize relay beamformer and transmit powers aiming at maximizing average secrecy rate (ASR). To... 

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are developing rapidly owing to flexible deployment and access services as the air base stations. In this paper, by taking the realistic assumption of imperfect channel state information at transmitter (CSIT), we investigate the robust and secure design of downlink UAV network while considering the worst-case outage constraints due to communication link uncertainties. In our proposed heterogeneous network, comprised of both UAV-cells and macro-users, rate splitting technique is deployed by UAV base-station (UAV-BS) to enhance the system performance in terms of security, power saving, and robustness against imperfect CSIT. Through our proposed design, we... 

Energy consumption and predictability are two important constraints in designing real-time embedded systems and one of the recently proposed solutions for the energy consumption problem is the use of non-volatile memories instead of conventional SRAM due to their lower leakage power consumption and smaller cell area. Furthermore, because of their non-volatile nature, the use of these memories helps normally-off computing and energy harvesting systems to resume their execution without a large startup delay. However, the write access latency of non-volatile memories is considerably more than that of SRAM which can decrease the performance and predictability of the system if not managed... 

Improving detection efficiency in small animal PET scanners without degrading spatial resolution is one of the main problems of these scanners. Commercial small animal PET scanners use different methods to achieve desirable levels of sensitivity and spatial resolution. GE Healthcare eXplore VISTA PET scanner uses double layer (LYSO-GSO) depth-of-interaction (DOI) capable cuboid detector modules. In this work, the design of GE Healthcare eXplore VISTA PET scanner is improved using tapered detector geometry instead of cuboid geometry. Using tapered detector geometry, the gaps between adjacent modules are filled and the sensitive volume has increased about 11.5%. The new designed PET scanner... 

Direct reduction of iron process in steel industry has special production conditions. Low quality cooling water, low cold and high hot cooling water temperature, space limitation for new equipment installation, high value-added of product and severe effect of cooling water temperature on production rate are of these conditions. Considering technical and economic constraints and limitations, this situation makes this process an attractive case study for converting the existing wet cooling tower to hybrid cooling system. In this paper, based on integration of process, dry and wet cooling system and ambient conditions profiles, a new method for designing hybrid cooling system has been proposed.... 

Flat plate solar collectors lose a massive part of heat accumulated near the contact region because of the poor thermal characteristics of the working fluid. A new cost-effective design is numerically studied to cover up such deficiency by equipping the flat plate collector with revolutionary tubes and magnetic field inducer to affect Fe3O4/water working nanofluid in the collector tubes. Results substantiate that each of the applied rotary tubes and magnetic field inducer improves the convection mechanism in the tubes by circulating the flow inside the tubes and saves more of available solar energy. Results reveal that 27.8% and 10.44% of lost energy are restored in the solar collector... 

A new impeller configuration with innovatively-designed shrouds is introduced, and its impact on the pressure head and efficiency of the semi-open centrifugal pump is explored using experimental and numerical approaches. The proposed design includes attaching specific plates called bladelets to a semi-open impeller to limit the secondary flows over the blades resulting in an increase in the pump head and efficiency. Hydraulic performance of a centrifugal pump with three different bladelets at angles of 30°, 60°, and 90° is investigated experimentally, and the results are compared to semi-open and closed impellers. The values of pressure head and efficiency of the proposed centrifugal pump... 

Purpose: The paper aims to address the combined attitude control and Sun tracking problem in a flexible spacecraft in the presence of external and internal disturbances. The attitude stabilization of a flexible satellite is generally a challenging control problem, because of the facts that satellite kinematic and dynamic equations are inherently nonlinear, the rigid–flexible coupling dynamical effect, as well as the uncertainty that arises from the effect of actuator anomalies. Design/methodology/approach: To deal with these issues in the combined attitude and Sun tracking system, a novel control scheme is proposed based on the adaptive fuzzy Jacobian approach. The augmented spacecraft model... 

Organ-on-chip devices have provided the pharmaceutical and tissue engineering worlds much hope since they arrived and began to grow in sophistication. However, limitations for their applicability were soon realized as they lacked real-time monitoring and sensing capabilities. The users of these devices relied solely on endpoint analysis for the results of their tests, which created a chasm in the understanding of life between the lab the natural world. However, this gap is being bridged with sensors that are integrated into organ-on-chip devices. This review goes in-depth on different sensing methods, giving examples for various research on mechanical, electrical resistance, and bead-based... 

The full-scale CFD simulations may not be recommended in preliminary steps of STHEs’ design and sensitivity analyses because of heavy computations. This work benefits from the sequential geometry repetitions in STHEs and presents a new semi-full-scale approach, which alleviates the need for full-scale simulation of STHEs. This approach first isolates the smallest zone, say block, which is sequentially repeated in the STHE domain. Second, this block is carefully simulated considering various thermal and flow working conditions. Third, the data collected from these CFD simulations are used to generate the required thermal and flow correlations for the chosen block at various working... 

User and device biometrics are proven to be a reliable source for authentication, especially for the Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications. One of the methods to employ biometric data in authentication are fuzzy extractors (FE) that can extract cryptographically secure and reproducible keys from noisy biometric sources with some entropy loss. It has been shown that one can reliably build an FE based on the learning parity with noise (LPN) problem with higher error-tolerance than previous FE schemes. However, the only available LPN-based FE implementation suffers from extreme resource demands that are not practical for IoT devices. This article proposes a lightweight hardware/software (HW/SW)... 

The turbo-expander system is utilized instead of the pressure regulator to avoid exergy destruction occurring in gas pressure reduction systems. However, due to the variation of natural gas input conditions such as mass flow rate, the sustainable performance of this technology is challenging. In this study, at first, the optimal system design of gas pressure reducing station equipped with radial expansion turbine is performed. It is based on economic and exergy analyses as well as considering geometric, fluid, thermodynamic constraints of components and the systematic constraints. To do so, detailed design models of main components including mean-line design model of radial turbine,... 

With the exception of a few works, the current approaches to aerial manipulation control do not typically consider the system constraints in the control design process. Also, the issue of closed-loop stability in the presence of system constraints is not thoroughly analyzed. In this paper, a novel multi-stage model predictive control (MPC)-based approach for aerial manipulation is proposed to ensure the closed-loop stability in the presence of model uncertainties and external disturbances, while satisfying the operational constraints. The detailed nonlinear model of a general aerial manipulator, consisting of a quadrotor equipped with a 3 degrees of freedom manipulator, is first developed... 

An economic-statistical design with multiple assignable causes following exponential distribution is presented in this paper for linear profiles. For this purpose, a tri-objective optimization model is proposed to minimize the cost with desired statistical performances. Average Run Length (ARL) as the primary statistical measure is employed for the appraisal of the designed linear profiles. The first objective to be minimized is a cost function that models the implementation cost in different states. The second objective is to maximize ARL or the in-control average run-length of the monitoring scheme. The third objective to be minimized is ARL 1 or the out-of-control average run-length of... 

In this paper, the hydrodynamic and thermal behavior of a Fe3O4 ferrofluid flow was experimentally investigated inside a cupric u-shaped tube on a horizontal surface, under the effect of a variable magnetic field. The inlet flow regime was laminar and considered under the thermal boundary conditions of the tube with a uniform heat flux, which was affected by the variable magnetic field in some regions. The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of parameters such as volume fraction of nanoparticles, Reynolds number of the flow, the radius of the curvature, and magnetic field frequency at three levels and four factors in the flow behavior in order to increase the convection heat... 

Robotic blimps have a wide range of applications, such as monitoring activities in their surroundings, advertising, and performing on stages. They also have remarkable capacities to be used as a social robot. In this research, a manually operated social robotic blimp has been developed intending to interact with children as a social agent and attract adults’ attention as an entertainer in indoor public environments. Since the appearance of a social robot has a significant impact on its acceptance, first, we acquired opinions of several participants on the shape of a desired floating robot. The results revealed that a simple spherical structure adequately draws people’s attention. After... 

Transmission of natural gas from its sources to end users in various geographical locations is carried out mostly by natural gas transmission pipeline networks (NGTNs). Effective design and operation of NGTNs requires insights into their steady-state and, particularly, dynamic behavior. This, in turn, calls for efficient computer-aided approaches furnished with accurate mathematical models. The conventional mathematical methods for the dynamic simulation of NGTNs are computationally intensive. In this paper, the use of autoregressive neural networks for cost-effective dynamic simulation of NGTNs is proposed. Considering the length, diameter, roughness, and elevation as the main...